The Black Nose
by Old Fiat
Summary: Draco saw it from the moment his newborn son was placed in his wife's arms. A Black trademark... First part of 'The Trappings' collection.


**The Black Nose**

Old Fiat

Disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah... You know the drill. I own nothing...

Summary: Draco saw it from the moment his newborn son was placed in his wife's arms. A Black trademark... First part of 'The Trappings' collection.

Notes: Me (Old Fiat Southern Italy) and my writing partner, Old Fiat Northern France, came up with a whole series of ideas to go along, side-by-side, with the _Harry Potter_ canon, as we view it. This series of short stories to explain these ideas will be called '_The Trappings_'. First up, our definition of "the Black Nose". Those who have read our previous works about descendants of the Black family might recognize the description. Enjoy and please let us know what you think!

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Draco saw it from the moment his newborn son was placed in his wife's arms. They had decided on the name in advance. Well, Astoria had at any rate—Draco had had little choice in the matter which was fine by him. He had never had a talent for naming anything, let alone a child who would have to live with the name for its _whole life_. (For example, at the age of three his parents had bought him a beautiful, white, long-haired cat which he had promptly named... _Cat_. It was little wonder that the animal had rapidly lost interest in her owner and attached herself firmly to his grandfather, even to the point of turning suddenly suicidal when the elderly patriarch past away..) No, it was better that Astoria was left to the names.

He leaned lazily back in a corner of the ward where he had been pushed earlier by one of the head healers. He wondered vaguely if Astoria would become particularly angry if he threw up from the repulsive and seemingly _endless_ display he had just had to endure. Most likely: yes, but he still felt like doing so.

But then one of the healers gave the tiny infant to his wife and he stood straighter, straining to catch a glimpse of the child, of _his_ child. The head healer who had previously shoved him away came forward. She was a fairly young woman, maybe only a few years older than Draco himself, with short, dark brown hair that curled a little from perspiration. He almost asked her why she had been sweating—after all, it was Astoria who had actually given birth to the baby, for God's sake—but stopped himself as he remembered the force of her earlier push.

"Would you like to see your son?" she asked, an exhausted smile on her flushed face.

"Yes." He sounded stiff and somewhat ill. He hoped that Astoria wouldn't kill him the moment he got close and that she wouldn't smell as rank as the ward had as she had pushed out his first born son. He approached cautiously, placing one foot carefully in front of the other.

And there he was—the newest addition to the Malfoy family, a tiny baby, curled up against its mother's breast. It was pink and seemed to be very interested in showing Draco that _it_ was, in fact, a definite _he_. Thin, blond curls sat in damp strands on top of the infant's almost over-large head, echoing the curve of his son's almost impossibly small ears. His hands were balled up in little, pink fists and his face creased into a expression of superb concentration. Draco felt a small flash of gratitude that the healers had taken the baby to be washed and stopped its bawling before returning it to Astoria, but was once more distracted by his son, his beautiful, tiny, perfect son...

_Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy_...

Now Draco thought of it, it was probably far too much name for such a tiny creature and somewhat ridiculous for a boy in the modern wizarding world, but he didn't really care. It was certainly better than anything he could've come up with.

He reached forward tentatively and gently ran a single finger down the baby's cheek. He caught Astoria's eye and she smiled. He smiled back, feeling suddenly as though his head were full of cotton stuffing instead of brains. He gazed back down at the baby and then... he saw it.

_The Nose_...

It could already be seen on the face of an infant, already distinguished after only fifteen minutes outside of its mother. A thin, straight bridge, no bumps, a slight turn up at the very end and that odd, pointy tip. Good Lord, it already had It.

God knows it wasn't an unattractive nose, it was just... just _The_ Nose. The Black Nose...

It had begun with the mother of Phineas Nigellus Black—one of the better known heirs of the family—and her first born son, Sirius, who was born with what his mother deemed to be a 'perfect' nose and who died after only eight years of life. She ensured, by magical means, obviously, that all the following children of the Black family would have precisely the same nose. She transfigured the faces of her own children from the moment of their birth to have a nose exactly like their eldest brother's. She cursed it into the genes themselves. It would always be dominant, always the marking feature of the descendants of the ancient line.

And it was carried through the family—with the exception of Cedrella, whose mother, Ursula Flint-Black, managed to hex her free of the gene to prevent it being carried through the descendants of the Weasleys when she banished her from the house. Draco often questioned how successfully Ursula actually _had_ prevented the nose's appearance in the Weasley family since they all did seem to have strangely pointed tips to their up turned noses and, in most cases, long straight bridges. However, it didn't look _exactly_ like the Black Nose, which Draco supposed was the basic intent. Spells upon genetics are always so hard to break.

He could still remember when he had first noticed it. His mother had a photograph which she always had proudly displayed on the mantle in the parlor of Malfoy Manor. He was only six and had long-since been abandoned by his pet cat, Cat. He watched from his seat on the floor with one of his extravagantly illustrated books—he couldn't even recall which one it was anymore—as his mother had taken down the picture in its delicate, silver frame and gazed down at it, an odd expression on her face. He had asked her, in an irritated tone, what she was looking at, even though he knew. She smiled and lowered herself to sit beside him, holding the photograph carefully in one of her long, pale hands.

"It's of me and my two sisters," she explained, calmly, pointing to the three young girls who stood together in the picture—one with long, black hair, another with dark auburn waves which fell just past her shoulders and yet another, who was clearly his mother, just with a slightly more nervous expression and narrower shoulders. "And look, there are my two cousins, Sirius and Regulus." She showed him the two younger boys who stood in front, both with thick dark hair, though the elders' was just a little wavy whereas his younger brother's was tending easily towards messy curls.

Draco had stared intently at the picture, memorizing the faces he saw behind the glass, blinking haughtily at him. He had never met any of them before and some of them, he never would. However, each of the five had the same nose. It was eerie.

When he pointed this out to his mother, she had gotten a strange, somewhat unsure look, but proceeded to explain to him, in simplified terms, the story of the Black Nose.

"You have it, too," she explained and then picked him up and held him up so he could see his face beside hers in the huge mirror that hung, just above the marble mantle. "See?"

He examined his reflection. It was true, even then, that he had precisely the same nose as his mother. His father would later remark to him that this was, in all honesty, quite a blessing, because the Malfoy nose (which was, thankfully, _not_ hexed into the genetic material) tended to be slightly over-large, high bridged and even the tiniest bit hooked. Still, Draco sometimes wished he had a nose more like his father and grandfather.

Because, though the Black Nose was not, in anyone's view, unattractive, it was... girlish.

After all, noses that look 'perfect' on small boys rarely look good on grown men. They look silly, feminine and, in truth, a bit stupid. Draco's nose had—somewhat indirectly—earned him quite a few nasty nicknames from his upperclassmen, the mildest of which was "Princess". Noses matter so much to the appearance of a face. Have a girlie-looking nose and, thus, you had a girlie looking face, but have a slightly large, but still vaguely masculine nose and you looked... well, _masculine_. It can make all the difference.

Scorpius' nose would stay stubbornly turned up and thin throughout the rest of his life, not that it particularly bothered Draco. One can't help one's genes, after all.

A Black trademark...

Unfortunately, the Black family hadn't married very far and so very few people still had The Nose. However, as Draco went to visit his wife and son after work the next day, he nearly tripped over a boy of about eight who was darting down the hall. The boy stopped as Draco stumbled and turned around.

Thick, aquamarine hair fell over the boy's forehead and strangely complimented his pale skin. His eyes were a warm gray and Draco saw, his stomach flipping strangely, that same narrow, straight bridge and turned up nose that he himself possessed. The boy rushed towards him, eyebrows knitted with worry.

"Are you okay, sir?" he asked, looking up at Draco apologetically. "I didn't mean to knock you over."

"Well, you didn't," said Draco, brushing some imaginary dust from his suit coat and trying to keep his face impassive. "So just don't—"

He was cut off as a woman rushed forward. Her long, dark auburn hair fell in waves around her shoulders and she gripped the boy by the shoulders.

"I said _don't run_, Teddy! _Don't run_! Why don't you ever listen to me when I tell you not to run!"

The boy squirmed uncomfortably in the woman's tight hold. "I just want to see Ginny! She's been in St. Mungo's for almost a month!"

"That's because she had a... complication during her pregnancy, Teddy. Besides, you wouldn't be allowed to just burst into her ward like a little hooligan!"

The boy fidgeted some more and the woman finally let go of him with an angry sigh. She turned towards Draco as she stood up and he saw, to his further shock, that she had exactly the same nose as himself and the boy, right down to the carefully pointed tip.

She didn't appear to have noticed.

"I'm very sorry, sir," she said, one hand still on the boy's shoulder, and then turned away down the corridor, the blue-haired boy held firmly in tow.

Draco simply stood silently for a few moments.

Perhaps the Blacks had married farther than he'd thought.

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